Scripture: Exodus 20: 8-11 and Matthew 11:28 – 12:14
For how many of you are busyness and stress a problem? Just for curiosity’s sake, how many of you who raised your hands are also retired?
In the Matthew reading, Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavily laden.” Is that you? Or maybe a more ordinary way to say that is, how many of you are tired and overwhelmed?
This, I think, is significant. In spite of ours being the world’s, and history’s, most prosperous, most healthy, most secure society, we live lives of stress, busyness, isolation, depression, and fatigue – maybe more so than almost any other society on earth. I believe that the busyness and stress of our society is a direct and necessary result of our consumer culture and economics. And Sabbath may be a way to find a little bit of sanity and sacredness in the midst of it all. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Can I have the first picture, please? I don’t know if you can see the details here: it’s just after five o’clock, her inbox is full and her outbox is empty, and she’s gulping coffee straight from the pot. Ever feel like this?
According to the Ten Commandments in Exodus, we are commanded to take one day in seven to rest. There is to be no work, no worry, no lists, no orders, no planning… One day in every seven, just like the seventh day of creation. Think about it. God creates all that is, and calls it “very good.” No one has messed anything up yet, it’s the Garden of Eden. Nothing needs to be fixed or tended, it’s all brand new and perfect. There is nothing to do but enjoy it. Sabbath. One day in every seven, to be lived as if we were living in Paradise. In heaven. Sound good? But very, very few of us do it. Most folks, especially folks my age and younger, think of a “day off” not as a day to let down our stress or our busyness, but simply as a day to change gears. Instead of work for pay, we’ll do housework, shopping, or some programmed activity. Or we’ll flop down in front of a TV, as a way of distracting ourselves from the weight we carry. We’re not laying down the load so much as collapsing under it.
Next slide, please? Come to me, all you who labour and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest, says Jesus. But tell me: is church rest for you? Or is it simply another gear change, another way to be busy and burdened?
Sabbath is meant to be a different kind of a day, a different kind of time. It is a day to let go of our stress and our busyness, a day to let go of our burdens, a day to be light and free. Next slide, please?
Interested?
Well, you don’t get free and easy without saying “no.” And “no” is a hard thing for many, if not all of us, to say. A consumer society is much more geared to saying yes – yes as in “buy now, pay later.” Yes as in “if you want something done, ask a busy person.” Yes as in “you really should…” We are reluctant to deny ourselves – or anyone else – anything. And so life becomes very full, and our burdens become very heavy. Next slide, please?
Let me get this off me for a bit here… I spent some of this week rummaging around in my own pack here, to see what weighs me down in life, to see what I might need to say “no” to in order to rest. Here’s what I’m coming up with. Of course I’ll have the usual blind spots and such, but maybe there’ll be something in here you can identify with, and maybe this will give you some ideas about what you might need to lay down on your Sabbath…
So what’s in here?
- Well, there’s an overdeveloped responsibility gland. Oh, I know there are some of you that have one of these! It’s fairly heavy. It makes you feel like you are carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, that you have to fix every problem that you see, or at least every problem that someone plops into your lap. Living life as if you’re responsible for everything and everybody is tough. It’s a heavy load to bear. And sometimes it distracts our attention away from the stuff that really IS our responsibility… For sure, we can lay this one down on the Sabbath. Maybe on other days too!
- There’s guilt. This is also pretty heavy. And now some of it is useful stuff – the specific stuff that I’ve done wrong (and I’m reasonably good at doing stuff wrong). But you know – that’s usually not that heavy and I usually don’t carry it around for long. The heavy stuff is the less useful kind of guilt. There’s the general stuff – the feeling that I’m just not good enough. And there are some legitimate issues that I’m just not ready to deal with. It’s hard to be light and free when you’re feeling guilty. We can say “no” to guilt on the Sabbath.
- Well, there’s stuff. It has to be bought, stored, cleaned, maintained, found when it’s lost, and I feel guilty if I buy stuff and then don’t use it… Stuff takes a lot of time, and it really does weigh me down… On the Sabbath, I can let the stuff take care of itself.
- Here are some bad habits, addictions maybe even. It’s personality stuff I drag with me, things about me that I know I should change, but I’m not ready yet. I’m still attached to them. I don’t know if I can let go of the habits on the Sabbath – but I can let go of the worry, the heaviness. On the Sabbath, I don’t have to “should” on myself.
- Other people. I worry about other people. Sometimes it’s just friendly concern. Sometimes it’s people that bug me, and I worry over how I’m gonna fix them, or win, or whatever. Sometimes it’s that responsibility gland again, and it’s other people’s problems that I’ve made mine. On the Sabbath, I can give the worries to God, and just let the people be. I can give thanks for them without worrying about changing them.
- Fear and anxiety. I’ve been reading a book lately that says our society is floating in a pool of anxiety. News about crime makes us anxious, even though rates of violent crime are apparently very very low. News in general makes us anxious, whether it’s about global climate change or the economy or politics or whatever. Change makes us anxious. Our health makes us anxious. You know. On the Sabbath, we are actually not allowed to worry. We can let that go. Let God handle the worries for a day. We can pick them up tomorrow – if we want to.
- Lists. They’re always longer than the time available. But no lists on the Sabbath!
Next slide, please?
Sabbath is built on saying “no.” But it’s a careful “no!” It’s “no” to all these things that weigh us down. We say no to work in order to rest. We say no to these things in order to allow our souls and bodies one day to be light and easy. We say no to shopping in order to be free, one day a week, from our wallets and our stuff. We say no to sports – if we do – just in order to be free from the clock, free from driving, free from schedules.
The thing is, saying “no” can become a heavy weight in itself! That’s what the “dark day of don’t” Sabbath is, and it is what Jesus is objecting to, I think, in the Matthew stories for today. We don’t want our Sabbath to be an oppressive day.
Here’s a little context. I understand the Pharisees in Jesus’ day had kind of codified the Jewish law. Something between six and seven hundred laws or something, that people were supposed to obey – including laws about what you could or couldn’t do on the Sabbath. Now a lot of us hear about seven hundred laws and we think that’s oppressive. That wasn’t the idea. I mean, walk into a law library someday – we’ve got a whale of a lot more than seven hundred laws here in Canada! Seven hundred is meant to be something easy, something to settle the conscience.
When the disciples went through the field, and picked some grain and ate it, that is lawful. According to the law, it was okay to pick from someone else’s field if you were hungry. But technically, rubbing the grain in your hands to clean the chaff was harvesting – not okay on the Sabbath.
And healing, of course, is not against the law. But in order for doctors to have a Sabbath too, it was not lawful to do any healing except for emergencies on the Sabbath. What Jesus did in the synagogue was not an emergency healing.
It’s just that sometimes rules can oppress. Sometimes rules can be used to keep people down. Sometimes rules can be used as an excuse to judge someone.
Last slide, please?
Sabbath is a day to be free and light. In order to do that, we must say no to some things – maybe some things that are good on other days. The aim is not to oppress, but to be free. The trick is to walk that fine line, between a “no” that is difficult but necessary, and a “no” that squelches the very life that we are looking to find.
Good luck finding your way. I invite you again this morning into an experience of Sabbath. Not just a day off. Sabbath is a day to rehearse for heaven. It’s a day to practice the Kingdom of God. It’s a day of paradise – of rest, and holy delight. Like any of the great practices, it can contain the whole of the gospel, and it can open the way for God to enter our lives. Come let’s join together, and taste and see that the LORD is good. AMEN.
Tags: Exodus 20, Matthew 11, Sabbath
